


hold my hand ; put on a show

by skateboardachoo



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Getting Together, Pining, and losing yourself within a public persona, don't worry it ends up happy and everything okay, thinking about manufactured intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skateboardachoo/pseuds/skateboardachoo
Summary: If Joohyun leaned forward, if there wasn’t an entire production crew standing watch, she could leave her mark. A simple smudge of an Etude House lip color on skin that said “I was here, once.”//Where reality gets tied up with fiction in a tangled mess during the Monster music video shoot.
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Kang Seulgi
Comments: 14
Kudos: 116
Collections: Girl Group Jukebox - Mixtape Round





	hold my hand ; put on a show

**Author's Note:**

> you ever go insane writing femmeslash as a wlw and turn a yell-y grrrl punk song into something way more existential than it had to be.
> 
> written for gg jukebox mixtape round, inspired by [my best friend's hot by the dollyrots](https://open.spotify.com/track/2FVEJt4xS9rumGapVJfw82?si=axcCKzyMRJOLLIXQaYYX0g)
> 
> thank u to [b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/changgus) and [maya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preciouslittletime) for beta-ing:)

The line between reality and what was manufactured for an audience got fuzzy a long, long time ago. Somewhere between dip-dyed hair and braids twisted around wireforms, responding to Irene became easier than responding to Joohyun. On bad days she couldn’t parse if anything about her was calculated or organic. Days when she had to be careful of how much she narrowed her eyes around men on a sunny day. If simply carrying around a book was taking a political stance or just a part of her daily life. 

Seulgi always calls her Joohyun. At least, she does when they’re not in public. In the quiet comfort of their twin-sized beds, confidentially hushed into her neck while a drama plays off of Seulgi’s macbook. The blurred syllables of “Joo—Irene-unnie” in front of cameras feel like a battalion battering her carefully crafted defenses. 

But right now, under the hot studio lights casting harsh white over the planes of her face and under the heavy weight of the camera lens fixated on her every motion, Joohyun can’t tell if the dark sparkle in Seulgi’s eyes and the acrylic nail tracing the soft underneath of her chin is one of her games. Teasing and touching her, trying to get the unflappable Irene to break. Their track blares over the speakers, keeping the shot in time with the storyboards, and Joohyun gathers her face into the sultry picture the director wants. 

Joohyun stares at Seulgi’s painted peach mouth, easier than having to tilt her head back to look Seulgi in the eye. The director probably wants her to take in Seulgi’s mouth anyway. The next line of their song starts and she tucks Seulgi’s hair away from her face. Her pinky finger trails along the shell of Seulgi’s ear, clicking and catching against a jeweled stud. Seulgi shivers, so minute that Joohyun is the only one to notice, and sharply inhales. Her face stays the same, statuesque and professional. 

There’s hesitation in Joohyun’s touch. She pretends it’s depth and layers to the role she’s playing today. 

It has taken a long time for Joohyun to be touched. Rather, to be okay with being touched. She’s fine with sweatshirt-covered arms looping around her waist and a blanket warmed nose ghosting the crown of her hair and a sleepy mumble of “Unnie, make me coffee” in the sanctuary of their tiny dorm kitchen without the voyeurism. That kind of touch reminds her that she’s there, that she’s real, and she’s Bae Joohyun. That her best friend is Kang Seulgi. They are them. Together they are home. 

It took Joohyun years to adapt to the precise and careful touches orchestrated by producers, desperate to get their directed snapshot of intimacy. The packaged soft brushing of hands against hands and glossy lips grazing powdered cheeks commodified for the general public is anything but a reminder of home.

Worse though, is the games. Seulgi embellishing their intimacy for the camera. Selugi touching Joohyun the way she’s used to being touched at home, away from prying eyes and loose lips, seeing if she can get Joohyun to stumble, get her to fluster and blush and get the director to yell “cut.”

It’s frightening how fast the switch works, how quickly circuits are closed and then opened and flipped back shut again. Will Joohyun ever get used to seeing it, even when her circuits work the same? 

“Less gentle, rougher,” is the next direction they’re given. Seulgi snaps out of the focus she let fall over her expressions and quickly shoots the director a look. She gestures a suggestion, long black hair waving around her face, a miracle how it doesn’t stick to the tacky surface of her lipstick. She is looking to the director for approval, but Joohyun is looking at her mouth. 

And then Joohyun is pushed back against the tessellated mirror wall set piece and Seulgi slams her hand to the right of Joohyun’s head. She’s dizzy with the sudden hit of nervous adrenaline and the smell of Seulgi’s blackberry perfume fading underneath the curve of Seulgi’s jawline, where it meets the gentle curve of her slender neck. If she leans forward -- if there wasn’t an entire production crew standing watch -- she could leave her mark. A simple smudge of an Etude House lip color on skin that says “I was here, once.”

But she and Seulgi don’t do that. Especially not in front of grips and stylists. The director would surely call it brilliant, but a kiss from another woman on delicate collarbones would never make it through broadcast rules. What they’ve already filmed is titillating enough.

There was already Seulgi crawling towards her, hungry, a beast starved, and Joohyun unable to keep a straight face. Not because it was bizarre to see Seulgi embody her character so thoroughly, but because Seulgi is too hauntingly beautiful, vanitas meets portraiture. Joohyun, overwhelmed with butterflies beating a storm in the pit of her stomach, pushed at her shoulder until they were both giggling behind their hands.

Then there was them in billowy white linen dresses, a window leading out to studio walls bathing them in artificial daylight, skin washed out. There Seulgi held her so gently, so sweetly, so tenderly that for a moment. Joohyun’s eyes dancing pirouettes across Seulgi’s features. There, she forgot where she was and she let herself be held. Joohyun wants that, but on purpose. 

Pleasure and fear walk the same tightrope. Joohyun finds herself teetering in the middle and the cameramen and set dressers are merely the audience waiting to see if she’ll fall.

And she almost falls. Almost. 

Seulgi is strong. Joohyun has spent enough hours of her time averting her eyes from Selugi in dance practice. Reminding herself to look away from sweat clinging like glitter to Seulgi’s defined stomach, and from toned arms revealing the power behind every one of Seulgi’s movements. There’s guilt in how she’s taken up stealing looks at Seulgi through reflections in the studio mirror instead. Mirrors are easier.

The mirrored wall poking into her back through layers of mesh and velvet and coping mechanisms. It does little to support her against the intensity of Seulgi’s heated stare. The beast is back and Joohyun’s the prey pinned defenseless with an arm around her waist and heavy-lidded stare piercing through her. 

And Joohyun likes it. Likes to feel small and trapped and like she’s the single-fixed point where Seulgi’s sunken all her attention. She wants to be devoured. Seulgi’s chest heaves against hers, praying that her heartbeat isn’t that of a mouse, and she brings herself to match Seulgi’s stare, challenging and a little bit wicked.

She gets lost in it and she thinks, maybe, Seulgi is getting lost too and they can lead each other back home. 

But it’s the director, again, calling out “Cut! That was perfect, Irene-ssi and Seulgi-ssi you can take twenty,” and the switch gets flipped again. Seulgi’s eyes soften, back to herself, and she’s laughing and then Joohyun is laughing with her. Her arms slip from the mirrored wall and she squeezes Joohyun’s shoulder, a reassurance, an _I’m still here_. 

“Sorry if I pushed you too hard, unnie,” Seulgi says, pulling away from her and tugging down the sleeves of her costume where it’s bunched up under her arms. Neat and polished. 

“Yah, you’re not as buff as you think you are,” she jokes back, reaching up to smooth out hairs that aren’t out of place in bangs of the wig the stylists put her in. 

The clack of their heels follows them as they make their way off the set piece and towards craft services. Seulgi places a light hand on the small of Joohyun’s back, her ring clicking against the fat rhinestones of Joohyun’s top, pushing her towards the pile of tiny bagged honey butter chips. Joohyun is back up on the tightrope. 

Seulgi snags and pops open a bag, happily munches on a chip. Her cheeks bunch up as she chews and Joohyun can’t help but feel enamored and charmed. She offers out the bag to Joohyun, like they’re in their dorm and no one can judge them for snacking, and Joohyun shakes her head. Seulgi shrugs like it’s her loss. She eats another chip, slouching and sheds the single-named persona of SEULGI. 

Joohyun likes having categories. It’s her Virgo moon and the need to keep things compartmentalized, easier to process and digest actions and words instead of letting things rage like a storm in her brain, cyclones kicking up messy promises and proven truths into a ravaged rubble. She doesn’t like it when the sorting gets confused and she can’t discern if Seulgi’s touches are real after nearly a decade of practice. 

Seulgi stares a hole in the side of her face, dark eyes narrowed, like she’s picking apart at the stitches of Joohyun’s seams. 

“You’re thinking too much again,” Seulgi remarks. It’s punctuated by another crunch. Joohyun’s eyelids flutter, breaking from her reverie, and Seulgi rolls her eyes and tugs her away towards their green room. They dodge a couple of stylists wanting to poke and prod and fix.

Seulgi gets her in the empty room except for the clutter of kicked-off sweatpants and gifted luxury slides and spins Joohyun against the shut door. A manicured hand on her shoulder and an arm around her waist. 

“What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, unnie?” Seulgi asks, calm like she’s talking down a skittish fawn. It makes Joohyun mad. Not at Seulgi herself, but that this quiet dizzy rage of hers is bubbling over and she can’t get a lid on the pot. Joohyun sighs.

There are days when she can be touched. There are days when she’s Bae Joohyun. There are days when she’s Irene. There are days when the rage hibernates. There are days when she is ore smelted into something stronger. But then there are days like today when the gossamer veil between performance and truths is lifted and the two fuse and warp. 

“Is any of this real?” It feels like she’s choking it out, but it comes out even and plaintive. Her eyes burn but she won’t let any tears flow. They’re on a time crunch and she’s sick of make-up adding layers to her face.

Seulgi’s face softens and giggles. Her nose scrunches and her cheeks round. Joohyun’s quiet anger tastes like bile on her tongue. Seulgi giggles and gathers Joohyun in her arms, away from the wall. She sways them around in tiny circles, looping. 

“I’m not stopping until you laugh,” Seulgi teases.

And that’s just it isn’t it. 

“Seulgi-yah, stop.” Her lips ghost Seulgi’s neck and they come to a halt. Joohyun doesn’t step out of her embrace, though. Blackberry and cognac perfume a home and comfort. Seulgi waits, patiently. Knows that Joohyun needs a moment.

She musters up some sense of courage, finally.

“Is this just a game? Just you ratcheting up how much you can get away with? Get me to freak out cause it’s fun or something?” Joohyun rants as Seulgi rubs her back, up underneath the jeweled mesh top, so close to skin touching skin. But then her hand stops and she pulls away from Joohyun’s body and it feels like Joohyun’s home is crumbling at the foundation.

“Oh, Joohyun-unnie. Never. I—“ Seulgi sputters and her face frantics. Joohyun’s chest aches. But then she’s shoved against the wall again and lipstick tacky lips press against hers and a key is pressed into the locket of her heart, pins aligning and clicking open. 

Then Seulgi is pulling away, chest heaving and nude lipstick smudged at her Cupid’s bow, and bites her bottom lip nervously. Joohyun thinks she’s never been more beautiful.

“It’s always been real, for me, at least,” Seulgi confesses. And Joohyun can’t help but laugh and let her forehead fall back into Seulgi’s neck. 

“Unnie, stop, why are you laughing, I just admitted, like, a decade’s worth of feelings!” Seulgi whines and that just makes Joohyun laugh harder and makeup will just have to deal with her inky mascara tracks. 

“I’m just really, really happy, Seulgi-yah,” Joohyun says. And Seulgi beams and smacks another kiss against Joohyun’s grin, mostly a mess of lip color and teeth, but it is perfect. “We’ll talk about this more when we get home?” Joohyun asks. She wants to be concrete and steadfast, make sure the foundation is stable and secure.

“Of course, unnie,” Seulgi says and threads their fingers together. 

There’s a knock on the door and it’s time to get back to Seulgi and Irene. 

**Author's Note:**

> go bonkers in yonkers: [monster mv behind the scenes video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOPknmFtE20)
> 
> [twit](https://www.twitter.com/skateboardachoo)


End file.
